Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning. I sometimes wonder though, maybe some have drunk the non-dual Kool-Aid a bit too deeply. For example, on a Zen Buddhist forum I created a poll which asked the simple question of whether Zen was rational or not. I gave explicit instructions that participants simply choose which yes or no answer felt more immediately right to them, and that they could go-off intellectually as they pleased in following comments. It was as thought they could not read the words I had posted.

Are some Zen practitioners in the West so attached to the ideas and culture of Zen that they cannot even entertain the notion of expressing how they feel in an nonintellectual or undogmatic way?

ajax wrote:Are some Zen practitioners in the West so attached to the ideas and culture of Zen that they cannot even entertain the notion of expressing how they feel in an nonintellectual or undogmatic way?

Those who contribute only have four options; answering the poll in a dogmatic way, commenting in an intellectual way, both, or neither posting nor voting.

Since you cannot assess those who do neither, your only pool of results is of people who either answer intellectually or dogmatically, or both.

This means that it is impossible for people to express themselves within the context of the experiment in a way that is neither intellectual nor dogmatic.

ajax wrote:Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning.

duality vs. non-duality is dualistic and zen goes beyond that.

But thanks for giving people an opportunity to respond.

Profile Picture: "The Foaming Monk"The Chinese characters are Fo (buddha) and Ming (bright). The image is of a student of Buddhism, who, imagining himself to be a monk, and not understanding the true meaning of the words takes the sound of the words literally. Likewise, People on web forums sometime seem to be foaming at the mouth. Original painting by P.Volker /used by permission.

An ambiguous question + binary answering option = bad survey. I mean no offense, but I do think you should be open to the possibility that the difficulty in communicating could just as well be at your own side as with a general population of Western zen practitioners.

Also to evaluate your results you should consider who and how many actually replied as a proportion of the population. The population could be all members or all potential members of the forum. So most people did not answer at all. And you probably have no basis in the survey for your inferences about the nature of Western zen practitioners. Framed more positively, the answer from the great majority was silence, nothing. Mu! Not some dogma or intellectualism.

ajax wrote:Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning. I sometimes wonder though, maybe some have drunk the non-dual Kool-Aid a bit too deeply. For example, on a Zen Buddhist forum I created a poll which asked the simple question of whether Zen was rational or not. I gave explicit instructions that participants simply choose which yes or no answer felt more immediately right to them, and that they could go-off intellectually as they pleased in following comments. It was as thought they could not read the words I had posted.

Are some Zen practitioners in the West so attached to the ideas and culture of Zen that they cannot even entertain the notion of expressing how they feel in an nonintellectual or undogmatic way?

ajax wrote:Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning.

A) There is no such a thing as non-duality

B) The existene of non-duality is not beyond question in any sense.

N

Non-duality is part of Buddhism. It is taught in the Mahayana sutras, not just in the Zen literature. It is the middle way and it is beneficial because it helps beings overcome their attachments. It is also a term used to describe the underlying nature of all things.

ajax wrote:Not to suggest that there is no such thing as non-duality, no, of course not. The existence of non-duality is beyond questioning.

A) There is no such a thing as non-duality

B) The existene of non-duality is not beyond question in any sense.

N

Non-duality is part of Buddhism. It is taught in the Mahayana sutras, not just in the Zen literature. It is the middle way and it is beneficial because it helps beings overcome their attachments. It is also a term used to describe the underlying nature of all things.

Non-duality is not a thing. There is no non-dual thing or state and so on.

There is a difference between an absence of duality (Madhyamaka, and so on) and so called "non-duality".

zangskar wrote:An ambiguous question + binary answering option = bad survey. I mean no offense, but I do think you should be open to the possibility that the difficulty in communicating could just as well be at your own side as with a general population of Western zen practitioners.

The poll performed it's function quite well and the instructions are clear and unambiguous.

Also to evaluate your results you should consider who and how many actually replied as a proportion of the population. The population could be all members or all potential members of the forum. So most people did not answer at all. And you probably have no basis in the survey for your inferences about the nature of Western zen practitioners. Framed more positively, the answer from the great majority was silence, nothing. Mu! Not some dogma or intellectualism.

My interpretation of the responses does not extent to all Western Zen practitioners, just some of them as I wrote, but it could be a sign of a larger phenomena. It's not just that they did not choose but why they did not choose. Look at the following quote from one of the responders:

Because it is not an either/or question. [why not choose?]

Zen isn't about either/or questions. It is about directly experiencing the true nature of reality. And answering such questions doesn't help us to directly experience reality.

This person's ideas about Zen prevented her from simply choosing one of two options that felt more right at that moment. Even if it were too difficult for this person to choose she wouldn't have chosen anyway, because it is against her beliefs to choose.

It is like the story of Achilles and the Tortoise. Even though Achilles could easily outrun the tortoise in a foot race he was rendered immobile and unable to act because of the ideas that the Tortoise put in his head!

Last edited by ajax on Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Non-duality is part of Buddhism. It is taught in the Mahayana sutras, not just in the Zen literature. It is the middle way and it is beneficial because it helps beings overcome their attachments. It is also a term used to describe the underlying nature of all things.

Non-duality is not a thing. There is no non-dual thing or state and so on.

There is a difference between an absence of duality (Madhyamaka, and so on) and so called "non-duality".

Non-dualism is part of Buddhism. For instance, here is a quote from an important Mahayana Buddhist scripture

from chapter 2 of the Sutra of Innummerable Meaningsall laws were originally, will be, and are in themselves void in nature and form; They are Neither great nor small, Neither appearing nor disappearing, Neither fixed or movable, and neither advancing nor retreating; they are non dualistic, just emptiness. All living beings, however, discriminate falsely: "It is this" or "it is that", and "It is advantageous" or "It is disadvantageous"; they entertain evil thoughts, make various evil karmas, and thus transmigrate within the six realms of existence; and they suffer all manner of miseries, and cannot escape from there during infinite kotis of kalpas.